There is known a conventional control method for activating occupant protection devices such as pretensioners of an airbag and a seat belt. In the control method, an occupant protection device to be activated and its starting timing are set in accordance with a crash situation of a vehicle.
For example, there is known a control method in which a front-crash airbag is deployed in the event of a front crash of a vehicle and a side-crash airbag is deployed in the event of a side crash of the vehicle, and a front-crash airbag is deployed and then a side-crash airbag is deployed in the event of an oblique crash (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-153224).
However, in the conventional control method, there may be performed a process for activating the same occupant protection device at different times when a plurality of conditions are satisfied simultaneously or continuously. Although the occupant protection device is activated by supplying power to a squib provided in the occupant protection device, there is a possibility that the squib supplied with power is short-circuited through ground or the like.
For that reason, when the squib is short-circuited through ground or the like at the first starting timing, for example, there is a possibility that power is further supplied to the squib at the following starting timings, and thus there is a problem in terms of power consumption.